Marissa Nadler draws me in with her beautiful 5th self titled album, released this week on her own label: Box of Cedar Records via funds raised on Kickstarter. With lots and lots of illustrations.

Marrisa Nadler’s 5th album came out this week. The Massachusetts born singer songwriter has been playing music since she was a teenager, teaching herself guitar, 12 string, piano and organ with a little help from her older brother. Swoonsome melodies always come first, followed by metaphor-laden lyrical tales. Marissa studied illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design alongside a Masters Degree in Art Education, but the self expressive potential of music proved too big a pull to resist. She still creates art and sells watercolours, prints and handsewn pillows on Etsy, using it as a homespun way to raise funds for her music projects.

Using online fundraiser Kickstarter to raise cash to record her self titled album proved an unprecedented success, allowing Marissa to make a record that remains true to her creative vision. The album was recorded earlier this year at the Miner Street studios in Philadelphia with producer Brian McTear and self released on Box of Cedar Records, named after a song on her first record. Everyone who helped to fund it received a hand wrapped record parcel in the post as a thankyou.

Marissa Nadler Album Cover.

Life, love and heartbreak, loss and death – all fragile human is found in the new album. From the crystal opening lines of In Your Lair, Bear…. ‘Where did you go, when the snow fell about you?‘ it’s obvious that this is an intensely personal album. ‘Like blood through your souls.’ Bears of course, are just a metaphor for human experience. Alabaster Queen tells the tale of a life that’s nearly drowned. The slow mournful strum of a guitar is the only thing that keeps us afloat.

The Sun Always Reminds Me Of You starts on a more positive note… the sun shining on a familiar walk… but that sunshine is not all good after all ‘there ain’t nothing but love songs on the radio.‘ There’s a cosmic countryish tinge to this, a squealing moog bouncing incongruously through the background.

In Mr. John Lee Revisited cements Marissa Nadler‘s reputation as a ‘mistress of the murder ballad’, singing of seductive red lips. But she’s running away again by Baby I will Leave in the Morning. ‘Baby you need to set me free‘ – key changes straining to get away from the melody. But she’s not leaving yet. ‘Come here… honey I don’t want to go away.’

There’s a rollicking undertow to Puppet Master, which was co written with Carter Tanton. Once more the seasons pin the lyrics in time and place. ‘Winter would come and nothing would move. Summer’s undone with all did I choose.’ She won’t ever do him wrong… ‘I was your pearl and I knew that you lied.’

Despite her angelic soprano Marissa Nadler will never succumb to what he wants her to be, never a Wind Up Doll. Light as a feather harmonies curl around a sparse wash of sound. ‘she will never be what you want her to be.’

A wobbling wall of synth opens Wedding. ‘I will wait for you to come around.’ Is she really still waiting? Somehow I don’t believe it, I think this album is the ultimate cathartic comeback. Doing things exactly as she would like, Marissa is fooling no one. This album is a masterpiece of that self expression she has spent so long searching for. Little King grew up not afar away. We’re in the autumn now but the suitcase is still being packed.

Breaking down In a Magazine, in public, but she has moved on – ‘my hands are tied, the rain falls, you look like someone I used to know‘ – maybe, though the memories remain. The album ends on Daisy, Where Did You Go? – Marissa still apparently stuck with phantom limbs in ‘this light of woe‘ but nothing scares Daisy. And thus ends a beautifully elliptical album that I’ve had on repeat for weeks.